


Blended to You

by 10k_au



Category: Z Nation (TV)
Genre: F/M, blend!reader, z weed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-29 16:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8496571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/10k_au/pseuds/10k_au
Summary: Blend!Reader gets extremely attached to 10k when she comes across him, the rest of the group is a little more cautious about her, but 10k seems to help her be a little more human.





	1. Chapter 1

Your eyes watch from a bush as a truck pulls to a stop outside of a house. Bodies clamber out, and one after the other, move towards the house. Warren and Addy move slowly around the sides, checking the windows and the back for signs of life. You follow another pair, a bearded man and a lanky teenage boy. 10k and Doc take the front of the house.

“You watch the road” says Doc, moving towards the door.

“Sure” replies 10k, standing on the pavement, rifle in hand, feet wide apart. You’re directly behind him. You sniff the air, taking in his scent. He smells like tree bark and gun metal, a delicious fifty-fifty split between nature and modernism. He turns, probably hearing you, and looks over the top of your head and towards the house. Seeing nothing out of place, he turns back. You move silently on your haunches so that you’re almost touching his legs and placing a hand on his calf, you let out a whining growl. He doesn’t jump, but he spins, pointing his rifle at your head. You stare up at him with wide eyes and tilt your head to the side, taking in his stance and facial expressions. Your muddled brain can’t seem to fit the pieces together to form an assessment of him though.

“Guys?” he calls out, his voice unsure. You hear running footsteps coming towards you and you automatically feel the urge to protect the boy. You move in front of him, spreading out as if to protect him from attackers. The others come to a stop ahead of you, weapons raised. You snarl and snap, fists curling tight in anger.

“Who’s this?” says Doc, eyebrows raised, “She looks like she’s got some of those Hungarian cooties.”

“What the hell is Hungarian cooties?” Says a female voice, you miss the mouth that says it.

“Guys, shut the hell up!” Says Warren, rolling her eyes. “You okay, darling?” she asks you. The words affect you a little, but they hardly make any sense to you. One of your eyes twitches and you back up into 10k. His gun rattles as he moves it, probably to put over his shoulder.

“She’s… like Cassandra” mutters Addy.

“Oh no?! No!” Says Doc “We do NOT need another one of those feral women”

You hiss, not liking his tone. He seems like a danger, and he smells weird. He smells like drugs. 

“What are we going to do with her?” says Warren, obviously speaking to 10k.

“Well we can’t just leave her…” he states. “Let’s take her into the house with us for the night, see whether she’s still here in the morning.” You listen to the sounds that he’s making, they sound like music to you, as though he’s singing a lullaby. You don’t want it to stop. 

“Come on sweetheart” The one called Warren moves towards you, towards 10k and holds out a hand. You recoil and swipe at the arm, not wanting her anywhere near 10k. Someone mumbles something about you only having eyes for one member of the group, and then the music starts again.

“I’ve got her” he says softly. You look up at him, and he gestures for you to follow him. You raise up from the squat you’ve been sat in for what seems like forever and slowly move beside him as he wanders into the house. Your eyes flicker between different members of the group ahead of you, making sure that they’re keeping their distance. You don’t trust them yet. They might hurt him.

10k follows the others into a wide open sitting room and tucks himself onto a large armchair. Addy and Warren top and tail on a plush velvet couch, Doc seems content with a few pillows on the floor. Vasquez is out somewhere on first watch. There are some others that are supposed to be with the group, there were more than five bodies that got out of the truck, but you’re not sure where they’ve disappeared to. You hop up onto the back of the armchair and survey the room. Warren watches you with weary eyes, and you stare back.

“Hey” says 10k, you automatically can see nothing but him. You twist your head around and watch his face with deep interest. “You can’t sit up there” he tells you. Your face scrunches up in confusion. Of course you can. You’re sat there right now. He shuffles and then pats an area of chair in front of him.

“Come here” he tells you. You jump down, startling the others who are trying to rest, and then clamber up into the seat. You crouch there instead, keeping an eye out for any danger.

“You can sleep” he whispers. “Nothing’s going to hurt you.” You shake your head.

“Watch.” You say in a confident tone. “Watch. You.”

“If we have to have her here, can we at least calm her down a bit?” Asks Addy, eyes still closed and head on pillow. “Even when I’m not looking at her angry face she’s giving me the creeps”

There’s a little bit of chatter, and some movement from each member of the group, and then there’s a smell. The same smell that lingers on Doc, but stronger, warmer, closer. Your head snaps round and you see 10k lighting up what looks like a cigarette, end hanging limply out of his mouth. A growl erupts from your chest subconsciously. He looks up at you, removes the lit cigarette from his mouth and coughs once.

“This is for you” He says gently, holding it out to you. “It helped Cassandra, It might help you.” You stare at it, frown pasted across your forehead, and then you bat it out of his hand like a cat would bat a ball of string. He curses and picks it back up before it can set fire to the furniture.

“Kid, she can’t smoke it herself” say’s a voice you’re not watching. 10k looks past you and shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and puts the stick back in his mouth. He inhales and then, after removing it, exhales hesitantly but deeply into your face. You have the urge to splutter, but you know that’s not what he wants, so instead you breathe the smoke in.

It enters your body with a force. It feels as though it’s burning away what exists in your blood and is replacing it with something new. Except it’s not something new, it’s something old. It’s a memory,

You’re walking along a road, backpack on shoulder, and cigarette in hand. You hail for a taxi, but because of the rain, no one wants to stop. A figure approaches you, umbrella in hand and lifts it to cover your head. The water ceases to drench you, and you smile at the man, who’s smiling back. He says something to you and you giggle. Emotions well up inside of you.

You stare at 10k and he looks back at you questioningly. The memory has left you already, but you can feel what it’s left behind inside of you.

“I can feel… Feel something” you manage, surprised at the words, but still struggling with them. 10k smiles, perhaps pride that what he was trying to do had worked. You’re shocked that you recognise this on his face. 

“Yeah? What is it?” he asks. You shuffle and twitch your head, trying to make more words happen. Something appears, but it’s not exactly what you want.

“please? No… after please”

“Thank you?” he suggests. You give an energised nod.

“Thank” you drawl, “10”

“10k” he corrects.

“10hay” you try, angry that the words aren’t working. He laughs at little at your attempt, and then puts a blanket over you. You sit there, watching him, him watching you.

“If you won’t sleep” he mutters, “At least get comfy.” He pulls you down next to him. You wriggle, trying to get back up, but he holds onto you tightly.

Eventually, at some point at the night, You sleep for the first time in weeks.


	2. Chapter 2

The sun spills through the blinds, a line of light falling onto your face, warm and comforting. You stir, eyes opening. 10k is gone. You jump up and look around the room. It’s empty, all of the bodies have gotten up and gone somewhere else. You growl and move across the room, out of the door and into the hallway.

Doc walks past you, carrying a large container of water.

“Morning darling” he says in a bright tone. You watch him carefully as he passes.

“10” you growl. He does a double take and comes back to talk to you. He looks at you with half amusement and half concern.

“10k?” he asks “The kid’s outside, repairing something on the truck.”

Before he’s even finished speaking, you’ve dashed past him and out into the garden. You see him from there, laying under the truck, one leg straight and the other bent at the knee. Scampering up the path, you see Addy giving you an odd look from the side of her eye. Once at 10k’s side, you tap him on the leg. He turns his head and peeks out at you.

“Still here?” he asks. He pushes himself out from under the vehicle and sits on his haunches in front of you. You nod and stare into his blue/green eyes. He grins a little and then stands up, gesturing for you to do the same.

“Come on then” He mutters, “I have to introduce you to someone”

You follow him around the side of the truck and he pulls the side down. You look up and see a face staring back. The face is much like yours. It scares you.

“This is Cassandra” 10k tells you.

Cassandra tilts her head, staring at you with confusion. You do the same, a left to her right. Her mirror image. After a second of looking into her broken, clouded eyes, you panic and jump behind 10k, arms around his legs, hissing gently.

“Girl, don’t intimidate her, she already knows you’re better than she is.”

“Murphy, shut the hell up” 10k murmurs.

“What?” Murphy laughs “Don’t tell me you’re on the defensive about her, because she’s obsessed with you?”

“Murphy.” 10k warns.

You peek around his leg to look at Murphy. He scares you. He makes you angry, because he looks like he might hurt your person. You grip him tighter, growling now. Trying to tell him that he needs to move away. Cassandra moves so that she can see you again. She opens her mouth as if to speak, but nothing comes out except ragged breathing.

Then, clear as day, you hear a female voice in your head. ‘You are like me’. You frown and relax your hold on 10k. He responds, pulling you free and moving a little away from you. You squint and roll your head on your shoulders.

“Speak?” you mumble. Cassandra’s eyes widen, and she makes a strange clicking sound, moving away from you and into murphy’s lap. She wraps an arm around his neck and then she stares at you again.

‘Yes, but in your head’ comes the voice again. You whimper, unsure of how to process the fact that she’s not talking, but she’s definitely speaking to you.

“10” his name is stretched out from your lips on a whine. ‘No one else can hear’ speaks Cassandra. She’s not looking at you anymore, but there’s no doubt that the voice is hers. 10k has moved further away from you, and you hurry over, cuddling into his side.

“You want something?” he asks, sounding a little tense. You nod.

“z-weed?” he asks. ‘z weeeeeed’ speaks Cassandra, and then she says it out loud as well.

“Good. Shit” she adds.

“I don’t have any” murphy tells her, you assume that she’s now badgering him for some. “Thanks Kid, now she’s going to be on me all day.”

You tug on 10k’s shirt, and he pulls you off of him. He spins you round and pulls you up to look you straight in the eye, face to face, a hand either side of your head. 

“What. Do. You. Want.” He demands of you. “Z weed? Flesh? A fucking bone?”

“Hey hey hey” you hear Murphy protest at his tone. You shake your head and try to gather your scrambled thoughts. You try to put the words together in a way that will make you sound more like him, more like a person. You think that it will make him like you. You want him to like you.

“10” you manage “good” You nod towards him, trying your best to mould your face into a smile. You’re pleased with your effort, but 10k just looks at you oddly, grip loosening on you.

“Good?” he repeats. “Good what?”

“10” you say again. He tilts his head like you do with yours and then he smiles. You attempt another smile back and he laughs, letting go of you completely.

“Alright” he says softly. “come on” He nods towards the back of the truck where Murphy and Cassandra are sat. ‘come’ speaks Cassandra. You look at 10k and then at the truck. He leans on the back, lifting his rifle from the bed up onto his shoulder.

“You are coming right?” he asks. The way he phrases it makes goosebumps raise on your skin. You look him up and down and then swallow.

“yessss” you cough. You jump up onto the truck and turn. 10k follows and sits down. You crouch next to him and rest your head on his arm. Murphy looks at you from the other side of the bed. Cassandra is laying across his lap, but that’s not what worries you. What worries you is the look that Murphy is giving you. You shiver a little and hold tighter onto 10k.

“Oh, Cassandra two came!” exclaims Doc, climbing up. He points at you and then pauses. “Wait… what AM I supposed to call you.” You stare at him, unsure of what he’s asking. What were you called? You didn’t have any recall of anyone calling you by a name. ‘me cassandra’ speaks her voice in your head.

“I’m okay with calling her girl.” Murmurs Addy, “Not like she’ll be around for long.” 10k makes a noise like air escaping from a balloon.

“We can’t just not give her a name” he states.

“Well what do you suggest?”

“Lucy” says murphy.

“No” Says Warren, getting into the front of the truck with Vasquez. “We are not naming her after your little blue bundle of weirdness.”

“Lucy is BEAUTIFUL” Murphy shouts. As the truck starts, everyone erupts into speech, clamouring over each other. 10k readjusts you against him, getting more comfortable. He ends up resting a hand on your leg. You stare at that hand, those fingers. You have feelings that you can’t place and that you can’t explain.

“I’m going to call you y/n” he mutters into your ear.

y/n , you like the sound of that. You like it a lot. You realise that you’re making a purring sound in the back of your throat. Happiness. You’re happy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10k has a thought about blend!reader's origin and Cassandra and Reader hit a disagreement of sorts.

The group stopped at the bank of a river. You watch as 10k leaps out of the bed of the truck and onto the grass, pulling his rifle free and looking through the scope along the water’s edge, he’s lithe and agile, a smile on his face as he scrunches it up to concentrate on what he’s seeing through the sight.

“It looks all clear.” He says, dropping the gun and looking over at Warren, who nods and looks around the group.

“Alright.” She says. “Everybody fill up their flasks and take a break, we move on in ten”

Addy opened the truck door and headed off down towards the river, unscrewing the lid as she went, Murphy and Cassandra disappeared in another direction and Doc lit something that smelled extremely pleasant before taking a long drag on it. You moved towards him, edging along the side of the truck until your face was inches from his. He didn’t notice you for a moment, and then when he did, he jumped, wide eyed as he shuffled away a little.

“Oh, hi there darling!” He exclaimed, a smile breaking onto his face. He followed your gaze to the cigarette in his hand and his mouth made a small o shape. Hesitantly he held it out between two fingers, and you leaned even closer, sniffing at it like a puppy trying to figure out its surroundings.

“You wanna partake, sweetheart?”

You stick your tongue out, tasting the end of the stick, before spitting the taste out, and wiping your mouth on your sleeve. It wasn’t what you’d breathed in before, it smelt harsher, darker. Doc laughed and took the cigarette back, and putting it between his lips. You turned your head towards 10k, but he wasn’t stood there anymore, with a panic you searched the bank, spotting him moving towards a tree. With a whimper you jumped down and ran after him, crouched low. When you reached him, he looked down at you, a tiny remainder of his earlier smile still lingering on his lips.

“You alright?” He asked, licking his lips. You watched his face with fascination and managed to construct some kind of a nod, stumbling alongside him in a squatted position, one hand darting out to grab at his trousers. He almost tripped when you took a hold of him, but righted himself at the last minute, grumbling about something under his breath. You made it to the tree and he sits down, stretching his long legs out in the grass, putting his rifle down beside him. You crouch by his side and stare at his lips, hoping that he’ll do the thing again, the thing that makes no sense. After a while of watching the others go about their business, his tongue darts out and he lips his lips again, making you jump. Then you open your mouth and try to imitate it. He turns his head and looks at you, confusion making way to laughter.

“What are you doing?” He asks, leaning his head back against the tree trunk. You try to mimic his smile, but from the look on his face, you imagine that you haven’t quite gotten that emotion right yet.

“We’ll work on that at some point.” He tells you after a while.

“Training your stalker?” asks a voice from behind you. You turn on your heels and look up into the face of Murphy, giving him one of your best warning stares. You still hadn’t got used to him being near 10k, there was something about him that screamed danger, and you wanted that danger as far away from your person as possible.

“If she’s my stalker, what’s that?” 10k snapped, throwing a look towards Cassandra. You looked at her, squatting at your level and you saw something behind her eyes, something that went with how you felt.

He hates me, he really hates me. 

Cassandra spoke into your mind. You felt your stomach drop, she sounded weird. You tried to put a word to it and eventually you came up with one that was close to what you wanted. Sadness. Cassandra was sad. You looked from her to 10k and then back again. You tried to speak to her the same way that she spoke to you, but you couldn’t work out how to do it, how to push the thoughts into her head.

“She’s a work of art!” Murphy exclaimed. “I created her. You didn’t create this thing. Neither did I, it’s a monstrosity.”

You growled, baring your teeth up at Murphy, daring him to say anything else or move closer so that you can tear his throat out and feel his warm blood trickle down your face. While you’re imagining what it would be like, Cassandra moves a little more in front of him, stretching herself out, opposing you.

Don’t touch him. She speaks. I need him.

“Wait.” Say’s 10k behind you. “Somebody must have created her. Does that mean there’s more immune like you?”

The two start to bicker, but you’re focusing on Cassandra who seems to be getting more and more protective the more that you observe her. She growls loudly and clenches her hands into fists. You snarl back and move backwards until you can feel 10k’s arm pressing into your back. He reacts by reaching around and placing a hand on your hip. For a moment you can’t think, and then you realise that he’s not doing it out of affection, he’s still rowing with Murphy, voice so loud that it’s straining his vocal chords.

He’ll never love you like he loved me.

Your eyes widen and you feel a burning anger building in your gut. With a hiss you leap forward and push her to the ground, clawing at her face. There’s a series of sounds from Murphy and 10k, and strong arms wrap around your middle, pulling you away. You struggle against 10k’s hold, dying to finish her off. She flips herself back onto her feet and runs at you. There’s nobody holding her back, Murphy is standing back, enjoying the show.

“Cat fight!” He shouts, “Finally!”

Cassandra grabs two fistfuls of your hair, her brute strength pulling you free from 10k as she tosses you to the ground. She climbs on top of you, sitting on your chest to punch you in the face and then wrap her hands tight around your throat.

“Murphy! DO SOMETHING.” 10k yells, trying to get the girl off of you, but struggling to do so with how intent she is on killing you.

“Hey, HEY!” Warren and the others are rushing across now, in a final attempt to get her off of you, you move your hands up to her face and press your thumbs into her eyes, but you can’t gouge, as much as you want to. Something is stopping you.

No don’t. For fuck sake don’t kill her.

Somebody is speaking, but it isn’t Cassandra this time. It’s 10k crisp voice, like heaven to your tortured brain.

“10.” You breathe, watching him trying to pull Cassandra away yet again, only succeeding in pulling her arms taut, starving you of oxygen quicker.

Out of nowhere a body bundles into you, taking hold of Cassandra and ripping her from you. Vasquez rolls across the ground with her before pinning her to the ground, hands holding her arms out and away from her body, leaving her snapping up at him with her teeth. Murphy watches this all with an amused look on his face, eyebrow raised. You gasp for breath, hardly with it as 10k helps you to sit up and looks you in the eyes, checking you for injury.

“What the hell was that?” Warren asks, looking from Vasquez fighting with a wild Cassandra to you, scared and wide eyed, finally bringing yourself back to reality.

“I don’t know.” 10k mutters. “But something’s going on, where the hell has this random blend come from?”

Random blend. Was that all that he saw you as? A thing that comes as a mystery? You want to react but you’re not sure how. You’re not sure how to convey the emotion that you’re feeling.

“Good question.” She mutters. “Something that we’re going to have to figure out.”

10k turned to grab his rifle. Across from you, Vasquez was hesitantly letting go of Cassandra, who rushed to Murphy’s side as soon as she was free. He watched her go and then shook his head, looking at you once before following Warren back towards the truck. 10k got to his feet and headed that way as well. You stayed there for a while, wondering whether you could just not go with them. But quickly you felt something inside you tug, like a piece of string attached to both you and 10k. You got up and slowly followed after him, rubbing gently at your sore neck.

If only you could go your own way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reader goes on a search for 10k, but ends up running into trouble instead.

You wouldn’t say that you slept. No. You didn’t really sleep anymore. You instead kind of drifted endlessly between that place in between asleep and awake, where everything feels soft and fluffy, like you’re just about to slip off of the edge and into dreams. You blinked a couple of times and huffed, annoyed that your vision seemed to be out of focus, or blurred. Sitting up, you looked around the truck where you’d been drifting. The only person in there with you was Doc. He was smoking something again, but this time it was the good stuff, the stuff that made you feel better about everything in the world. The truck was filled with its smoke. That’s what the blurring to your vision had been. You breathed in as much of it as you could, moaning as it eased every atom of your being, you almost felt like you had before, before you were this.

“Oh, hey!” Doc exclaimed, exhaling deeply and relaxing back further if that were even possible. You took another deep breath and pondered what you wanted to say, knowing full well that when it actually came to saying it, half the words were probably going to get lost along the way.

“Where did 10k go?”

You and Doc stare at each other and he looks from you to his blunt and back again, eyes wide. You can tell what he’s thinking, what the hell was in what he smoking. You couldn’t quite believe what had come out of your mouth either. Normally your speech got broken up and difficult on its way from your brain to your lips. But you’d just spouted a sentence without stumbling or stuttering. It had sounded like somebody else speaking.

“Uhm.” Doc raises his eyebrows and takes a long drag before looking at you again with a curiosity that you’ve never seen on his face before. Or perhaps you had and you just hadn’t been with it enough before to recognise it.

“10k?” You press, already finding that your new found slice of humanity was slipping through your fingers again. Doc made an o with his lips, and puffed out a ring of smoke that you watched travel towards you until it made you go cross eyed.

“Everybody left about half an hour ago.” He tells you eventually, when he picks up the motivation to actually talk again. “Scavenging in town.” He points out of the window to a small row of buildings. You follow his gesture, thank him with a nod and then open the door to the car, slipping out and into the road. It’s gotten cold. It feels as though there’s a storm coming. Clouds are gathering overhead and winds are picking up as you make your way along the crossroads to the buildings, listening out for any sound, any clue that would alert you to 10k’s presence.

After a while you hear a banging from a little sewing and repair shop to your left. You sniff the air and stalk up and across the pavement to the front door. You can definitely smell that he’s been here. He smells like pine needles and animal fur, and the trail led right under the door. You pawed at the glass before working out that it was a pull and yanking it open, slipping into the shop. It’s silent inside, and there’s no sign of life.

“Hey-lo?” The word isn’t quite right, but multiple syllable words are hard and you praise yourself on even attempting it. You look around the wall, waterfalls of different coloured materials and string are streaming down, blowing in the wind that’s whistling in through the cracks in the open glass shop front. You were almost entranced by the beauty of all of the different hues floating around. You wanted to catch them all, keep them, give them to 10k as a gift to show him how much you cared about him.

You’ve gotten better with your words.

Cassandra. You couldn’t see her yet, but you could feel in your bones that she was close. You were one of the same kind and something drew you further into the room although you knew from only a few days ago that she was dangerous. That Murphy wouldn’t stop her from hurting you if she decided she wanted to.

You fell into a crouch, scanning the room, making sure that she wasn’t going to jump out on you from behind a shelf.

“Cassssss?” her name turned into a hiss on your lips, you’re not sure whether it was on purpose or not, but you like the way it sounds. You pause, make more of the hissing sound. It makes you feel warm, happy.

“Oh, shut up.”

Murphy appears in the doorway to the next room. At first you can’t see Cassandra with him, but when he moves further into the room, she rounds the corner, a smug look on her face. You can’t hear her thoughts, she’s not speaking them to you anymore. You’re grateful, you’re pretty sure that you wouldn’t like what you heard. You tilt your head to the side, questioning what’s made him angry. He gives you a look as though you’re an insect that’s annoying him.

“You’re disgusting.” He spits. “You’re not like Cassandra, you’re not one of my masterpieces.” He regards you with a scrutinising look, and then he turns to Cassandra, nodding towards you, obviously telling her to do something. She returns his gaze and then looks at you, eyes lighting up with excitement.

Check her for bites, check her for bites, and find her bite. 

She’s like a stuck tape, repeating the same thought over and over as she moves towards you. Murphy looks on with a similar look in his eye. The two of them look so threatening that you back up automatically. This only manages to rile Cassandra up who takes a running jump at you. You let out a high pitched whine, asking her to let go of you in the only way that you know. But she doesn’t listen, she grabs a hold of your top and pulls at it as hard as she can, you fall to your knees and she takes the opportunity to pull the tattered t-shirt up and over your head. The room feels even more freezing now. You feel the urge to wrap your arms around yourself, cover the underwear that covers you, but not able to understand why, you ignore it and go back to trying to push an angry Cassandra off of you.

Stop it, stop fighting back

She throws the top away and spins you around. Not finding any sign of a bite, she reaches for your jeans. Panic shoots through you. Memories of something before, a similar situation, somebody undressing you, you’re not able to stop them.

“Must be on her leg.” Observes Murphy. “Let’s see.”

Cassandra tugs at your jeans, and you whine louder, turning into a scream. You couldn’t stop if you wanted to, your body is totally in control, in panic mode.

Shut her up.

Her hand comes up to cover your mouth, to silence you. You wriggle a little in her grasp, one last attempt to get free. You think about biting her hand hard, your teeth ripping through the soft flesh of her palm, pulling at the nerves and tendons. But you don’t. Because you know that it would upset 10k, and you don’t want to do that. Not ever again.

“What’s going on?”

Time seems to freeze for a moment. You look back towards the front of the shop. Your vision is upside down, but you can still clearly make out 10k’s shape, his stance is rigid. You try and turn your head, to look at him properly. Only then do you realise that your face is wet, that you’ve been crying. Sadness.

He takes in Cassandra pinning you down, pulling your clothes off of you. Murphy looking on. He takes a step towards you all and narrows his eyes.

“Are you…” His gaze fixes on Murphy, and his expression melts into one of pure anger. He starts towards him, fists clenched.

“Hey hey!” He exclaims. “I’m not attacking her, I was just getting Cassandra to check her for bites.”

10k had raised his gun, but now he dropped it a little, looking across at you. His eyes are filled with confusion, as though he’s torn between wanting to find the bite as well and knowing full well that it’s not right in any sense of the word. After a while he lowers the gun completely and then moves towards you. You warm a little, hoping that he’s going to come and pick you up, whisk you away like a damsel in distress.

“Come on.” He mutters, pulling Cassandra up and away. But he doesn’t turn back for you. Instead he marches her away and out of the shop. Back to the truck you assume, where Doc can keep an eye on her. You’re surprised that Murphy had let her go so calmly. But you receive an explanation for that soon enough. As you move across to pick up your shirt from the floor, Murphy ducks down, squatting on your level so that he can look you in the eye.

“I don’t like that you’re not under my control, I don’t like it one bit.” He tells you in a firm voice. You stare at him with big eyes, hoping that he’s not going to hurt you. Nobody would miss you, that’s for sure, but there was emotions at the back of her mind, for people she’d met. She had to live, for now.

“I’m going to change that.” He adds, so much venom in his voice that you flinch away a little. You can’t process what he means, but you know that it can’t be anything good. All he ever wants is to hurt people. He wants to hurt you especially it seems. Out of nowhere he grabs your shoulders, pulling you closer. You panic, struggling to get away from him. With a cruel smile he shakes his head, not letting you gain an inch.

“Come on, you don’t need to be afraid anymore.” He whispers, almost sounding sincere for a moment.

“Murphy!” 10k’s arm comes between you both, pushing him away from you. “For fuck sake, get off of her.” Murphy gives you one final look, one that says, quite simply, ‘soon.’ Then he moves away, standing up straight, looking 10k right in the eye as he had done with you. He smiles as if he’s hiding some malicious secret and 10k squares up to him, every muscle in his body tense.

“Don’t ever do that again.” He hisses at Murphy, so much anger in his voice that everything else in the world seems to melt away. “Or I will. End you.”

Murphy’s expression changes from humour to anger matching his, and then he spits past him at the floor and storms out of the shop. Like a distant memory, you can hear Cassandra from the truck.

Murphy… Murphy is coming. My Murphy.

You look up into 10k’s face. He looks down at you, his eyes still brimming with fury. You reach out to grab a fistful of his trousers, but he moves out of the way before you can grasp it.

“Get dressed.” He tells you sternly, picking up your top from the floor and throwing it at you. Quietly and slowly you pull it on, struggling a bit with the sleeves, but eventually managing to pull it on and fixing your trousers as well.

“10.” You whisper. He doesn’t look at you. Instead he just sighs and stays quiet, and you decide to try again, you’re determined to make him a little happier.

“10-k. Thank you.” There’s gaps between the words, too long to be natural, but the words all come out properly and you beam up at him, so proud of yourself, hoping that he’ll be just as proud. Slowly he turns his head to look at you, eyes widening.

That was so human. Something’s different. She’s different.

His voice always sounds so different in your head. He sounds happier, as though that’s how he is naturally, without all the effects of the outside world bringing him down, wearing him away until he’s merely a shell of himself. He drops to his haunches and stares into your soul. He reaches out with both hands and cups your face in his hands, holding you tight and still.

“When I look at Cassandra, she’s not in there.” He tells you, his thumb moving a little against your cheek. It makes you shiver and you close your eyes for a moment before opening them again to see the reflection of your black and yellow irises reflecting in his blue eyes.

“You’re different.” He says. “You’re in there, you’re fighting.”

You stare at him, shivering a little still.

“I’m try.. try-ing.”

His eyes widen further at your words and he moves closer, closing the gap between your faces. His eyes flicker from yours to your lips, and he jolts forwards a little more. You can feel his warm breath against your mouth and you stop breathing. You feel like you’re ceasing to exist in this reality. That he’s helping you transcend from the feral body that you’re stuck in. His lip trembles.

Kiss her. Kiss her now. Do it before you chicken out.

A noise from behind you breaks the moment, 10k pulls away and looks past you, hands dropping from your face. Vasquez is stood in the doorway, looking anywhere but at the both of you sat in the middle of the floor.

“Sorry to interrupt.” He mumbles, obviously finding the whole situation extremely awkward. “Warren and Addy found some food, lots of cans, we need your help loading up.”

On the way back to the truck, all you can think about is 10k’s face next to yours, lips so close to touching that they tingle from the anticipation. He was going to kiss you. He wanted to kiss you. You find an odd bounce in your step as you follow him down the road. Suddenly out of nowhere, Cassandra pushes some images into your head.

10k is wrapping his arms around me, head on my shoulder. We’re keeping each other warm.

The Cassandra in her memory is from before. A fully human Cassandra, she was pretty and warm, instead of the jungle mania that was present within her now. Within both of you. You can see why 10k liked her. She looked soft and kind. Instantly jealousy rises in your stomach.

He’s kissing my neck, up to my lips. He’s telling me that he loves me.

Something snaps, much like it had when you’d jumped on her the other day. After she’d told you that he’d never love you. You wrap your arms around both of 10k’s legs, nearly tripping him over, almost making him drop the cans of precious food that he was carrying.

“Shit.” He mumbles. “Don’t do that.” The annoyance in his tone makes you loosen your grip and then he shakes you off with a huff, wandering away to put the goods into the boot of the truck. You watch him go, listening to the smug voice of Cassandra in your head.

I told you so… told you so.

Upset, you climb into the back of the vehicle, back into the seat that you had arrived in. Doc had gotten out at some point, to help Warren and the others. But some of the smoke still lingers and you take a few deep breaths in. You whimper, realising that it’s only clarifying the pain that you’re feeling. You turn and look out of the back window. 10k has gotten up into the bed of the truck to slide cans on and is now checking on Cassandra, who’s curled up in the corner. He puts a hand on her shoulder and the action feels like a knife being stuck in your spine.

He’s mine.

Cassandra pushes into your head, knowing that you’re watching.

Go get him girl

Murphy’s voice is quieter than Cassandra’s because it’s filtered through her head before it gets to yours. Cassandra leans forward, pulls 10k into her and kisses him hard. Doc whistles, watching on, surprise plastered across his face. Addy raises her eyebrows and turns away. Embarrassment. The pain that you’re feeling spreads throughout your body. But thankfully he pulls away. He pulls away eventually.

First he kisses her back, lips moving against hers, hand gripping her shoulder.


End file.
